Set up location tracking

Available for an ArcGIS organization licensed with the Indoors extension.

The Location Tracking service is an ArcGIS organization-wide capability that records where members are and where they have been. The following sections describe how to set up location tracking in your ArcGIS organization.

Enable location tracking

As an administrator of your ArcGIS organization, you can enable location tracking for your members as follows:

1. Sign in as an administrator.
2. At the top of the site, click Organization and click the Settings tab.
3. Click Organization extensions on the side of the page.
4. Click Enable Location Tracking.

Your Enterprise portal must have the spatiotemporal big data store configured (one of the types of data stores available through ArcGIS Data Store).

Learn more about configuring location tracking

Manage location tracking

Once location tracking is enabled in your Enterprise portal, it is important to configure the duration for which the tracks should be retained. The default value is 30 days, but you can choose a different value based on your organization’s needs.

The location tracking service can also be paused or disabled after it's enabled.

Learn more about managing location tracking in your ArcGIS organization in Enterprise

Create a viewer custom role

By default, only administrators can view data in the location tracking service. To allow members to find the current location of others who are sharing their device location, assign them a custom role with the privilege to view location data.

Follow these steps to create a custom role:

1. Sign in as an administrator.
2. At the top of the site, click Organization and click the Settings tab.
3. Click Member Roles on the side of the page.
4. Click Create Role.
5. Type a name and description for the role.
6. Set the appropriate privilege compatibility based on your needs.
7. Turn on the View location tracks privilege in the Content group in the General Privileges section.
8. Click Save role.

Create views and add members

Views can be created using the Track Viewer app. Administrators can add members to allow them to post track locations and control who can view them.

1. Sign in as an administrator.
2. At the top of the site, click Organization and click the Settings tab.
3. Click Organization extensions on the side of the page.
4. Click Open Track Viewer to launch the Track Viewer for ArcGIS web app.
5. In the app, click Create view and provide a name.
6. Click Create view.
7. To allow members to share locations, add them to the MOBILE USERS tab.
8. To allow members to view shared locations, add them to the TRACK VIEWERS tab.

   Note:

   Only members who were assigned the custom role created in the previous section can be added to this group.

View device location and tracks

You can view location information with the following apps:

• Indoor Viewer
• Track Viewer
• Map Viewer
• ArcGIS Indoors for iOS
• ArcGIS Indoors for Android

Viewer

With Viewer, you can take advantage of the last known location information provided by the Location Tracking service, if enabled on both the ArcGIS organization and individual devices, in both browser and kiosk modes of Viewer. Location information in Viewer is limited to those signing into the app using an ArcGIS organization named user account that has been granted permissions to view device location tracks.

If a user who is sharing their device location is found in Viewer through search, explore, or related items, the info panel includes an option to see that user’s last known location.

To see a user’s last known location:

1. Find the user using the Search, Explore, or Related Items functionality.

   Once the info panel opens to focus on that user, the last known location is shown as an option in the info panel.

2. Click the bar to see that user’s location and focus the map and info panel on that location.

   Options are provided to route or recenter the map to the last known location.

Track Viewer

The historic tracks and last known locations can be viewed in the Track Viewer app in your ArcGIS organization. You can access the Track Viewer app from your ArcGIS organization by clicking Organzation, clicking the Settings tab, and clicking Organization extensions.

Enterprise Map Viewer

The historic tracks can be viewed by creating a web map with the location tracking layer. The settings configured by the administrator determine who can view the map and which tracks are available to view.

ArcGIS Indoors for iOS and ArcGIS Indoors for Android

The current location (if a member is actively sharing location) or last known location (if a member has stopped sharing location or is offline or outside the tracking zone) can be viewed in the Indoors mobile app by other members if they have the required permissions and are part of the appropriate views and groups.

Learn more about app settings and usage for Indoors for iOS and Indoors for Android.